Blogging BlizzCon – Part 1

I was planning on trying to do a nightly blog entry on my activities at BlizzCon, but was thwarted by the lack of internet access at my hotel. Instead, I’m going to give you a BlizzCon retrospective, based on the shorthand notes I jotted down at various points during the day.

Thursday, October 20th

I woke up at around 4AM to shower, collect my things, and head to the airport for a 6:45AM flight. While getting my tickets, I found out the first leg (Rochester->Cleveland) had been delayed and I would have missed my connection, so they re-routed me to go through Washington DC instead. That flight left at 6AM, so despite having slightly longer flights, I’d arrive at LAX at approximately the same time I would have with my original flights. I’m glad I showed up as early as I did. So far so good, crisis averted!

The flights were uneventful, mostly spent napping and listening to the last few episodes of the Leetsauced podcast. I managed to slip in some time to run a few MATLAB sims on the T13 ret 2-piece bonus, as well, figuring I could post them when I had some downtime at the hotel. After landing in LAX, I took a SuperShuttle to the hotel, where I met up with Meloree.

We proceeded over to the Hilton, which is right next to the convention center, to meet up with Antigen and one of his Enveloping Shadows guild-mates (Sheepin) for drinks. After about an hour, Rhidach and two other guild members joined us (Ildara and Cendra), and we hit the food court for lunch. I was also amused to find out what a small world it is; apparently two raiders in Enveloping Shadows happen to be good friends of mine from college.

We returned to the Hilton lobby after lunch for more drinks, during which I managed to somehow chip my tooth on a bottle of Corona. After another drink or two, I headed back to my hotel briefly to recharge my phone for the evening, as well as pick up one of the nifty “Hi, my name is Theck” nametags I had printed out at home. I also found, to my dismay, that the Hotel didn’t have free wi-fi, so I couldn’t post the simulation results I acquired on the plane.

Disappointed, I headed back to meet up with the rest of the crew back at the Hilton, from which we headed to the WoWInsider party. There I got to meet Vik and Logan from the Leetsauced podcast, and Ophelie from The Bossy Pally blog. After a few hours there, we headed back to the Convention Center and stood in line for about 30 minutes to pick up our tickets and goodie bags. While in the line Phonic from Maintankadin recognized me, either by my maintankadin t-shirt or nametag (or both), and said hi.

Finally, after picking up our goodie bags and dropping them off in Rhidach’s hotel room, we all headed to the Maintankadin meet-up, which was pretty well attended. I had a chance to meet and chat with Nikachelle, Invisusira, Sahiel, Mew, Ack, Pfife, Anafielle, Psiven and his wife, and Arianne and her hunter friend whose name I’ve forgotten. There were a few more, but some were friends/guildmates of other MTers, and it was loud enough that I had trouble catching everyone’s name. So if I left you off the list, sorry!

Nothing much happened afterwards, around midnight the party ended and several of us walked back to our hotels together. I basically went straight to bed, having been awake for over 24 hours by that point, and having only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before.

9 Responses to Blogging BlizzCon – Part 1

My favorite part of BlizzCon was when I walked up to you three at the Hilton Bar, recognizing Antigen immediately. You all turn and look at me in confusion (Mel emitted a territorial growl), and I made the mental calculus of who was who. Imagine my surprise when you weren’t a 50 year-old man with a generous white beard, Theck. Mel, however, looked exactly as I imagined.

I was sooo excited about meeting you. So excited that I ended up being shy and starstruck and couldn’t get any words out. Was hoping to make amends later on, but I never found you again. But yeah, I offer you my apologies and I hope to see you again next year, where I hope to make a better impression!

(And echoing somewhat what Ridach said, I was half expecting you to look like older Obi-Wan)